Forgotten Hollywood

Manny P. here…

   The company that owns the West Hollywood movie studio known as The Lot has revised its controversial development plans for the historic property. CIM Group, which began demolition in April 2012 before plans stalled, says it’s proposing a more favorable preservation plan for the property at the southwest corner of Santa Monica Blvd. and Formosa Ave. They’ve decided to demolish and rebuild some of the movie studio buildings. Before halting demolition, CIM razed the Pickford Building despite protests from preservationists.

   The 10-acre movie studio and backlot was built in 1919. A few years later, silent-era stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks purchased the property, calling it Pickford-Fairbanks Studio, and also known as Pickfair Studios; and later, the United Artists Studio, Samuel Goldwyn Studio, and Warner Hollywood Studio. Many classic movies such as Some Like it Hot, The Apartment, West Side Story, and The Manchurian Candidate were filmed there. The studio was awarded with the Oscar for Best Sound in 1968 for In the Heat of the Night. Across the street is the Formosa Cafe, a legendary Hollywood hangout.

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   Scott Carpenter was the second American to orbit the Earth, and the fourth in space, following Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, and John Glenn. He was one of the original seven astronauts selected for NASA’s Project Mercury in 1959, and chronicled in The Right Stuff.

   Chosen for Project Mercury, Carpenter served as backup pilot for Glenn, who flew the first US orbital mission on the Friendship 7 in February of 1962. After Deke Slayton withdrew on medical grounds from thesecond manned orbital flight, Carpenter was assigned to replace him. He flew into space on May 24th, aboard the Mercury-Atlas 7 rocket for a three-orbit science mission that lasted nearly five hours.   SCOTT CARPENTER –>

   Carpenter was also the first American astronaut to eat solid food in space. Due to a major splashdown controversy, the authentic hero never flew another mission in space. He returned to work at NASA as Executive Assistant to the Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center. He retired from the Navy in 1969, after which he founded Sea Sciences, Inc., a corporation for developing programs for utilizing ocean resources and improving environmental health.

   After Scott Carpenter’s passing on Thursday, John Glenn became the last living member of the Mercury Seven. He was 88.

Until next time>                               “never forget”

This entry was posted on Friday, October 11th, 2013 at 1:18 am and is filed under Blog by Manny Pacheco. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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